


A Season Out of Time

by Elvaron



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-16
Updated: 2014-01-02
Packaged: 2017-12-20 09:30:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/885681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elvaron/pseuds/Elvaron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In another universe, Cordelia never returns to Barrayar. Simon Illyan attempts to pick up the pieces of the shattered wreck that is Aral Vorkosigan, and the Regency spirals off in a very different direction. An AU spanning post-Escobar to Regency-era, a story about survivors, swords, and sharp edges.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

* * *

_For everything there is a season, a time to every purpose under heaven_

* * *

#### 0\. A Time to Keep Silence

_"--And when you're done, you'll be able to return to your old life as though none of this had ever happened."_

Cordelia shot awake, Dr Mehta's words ringing over and over again in her head. The doctor's face loomed briefly into mind, knowing eyes staring deep into her soul, the curl of the smoke rising from her cigarette winding past her face, snake-like.

_As though none of this had ever happened_.

None of _what_ , Cordelia wondered, pressing her thumbs into her temples to ward off the growing migraine. The unease that had been growing in her dream had followed her into waking, now it writhed in her belly, making her breaths come short and tense. _None of what? What old life?_ Something was _wrong wrong wrong_ every instinct clamored, but try as she might, she couldn't piece this puzzle together.

_And when you're done..._

She grasped at the fragments of the dream and tried to _think_ , to wind back the tape. It was something important, her soul knew, something that made her heart ache with a devastating sense of loss, something that drove her to her feet and to the window of her apartment. Out in the darkness, the stars glittered, far out of reach. The sight of them only made the sense of loss grow keener, the ache becoming the sharp flare of a knife cut, and she pressed her fingers against the glass and willed herself to _remember_.

Something flared in the distance, and she saw a glowing line cut across the night sky, arcing from the heavens down to earth. It was probably a shuttle, but from this distance, she could imagine that it was a falling star.

"Why do we wish upon those, anyway?" she murmured. "If a star falls – isn't it in enough trouble of its own already?"

But she was already wishing, biting her lower lip with nervous concentration. A thread, a ball of string, a way back through the labyrinth to a beginning that she didn't know any more.

_You don't want to go back there,_ Dr Mehta said in her mind's eye, confident. _That way lies dragons._

_Stuff it,_ she shouted back. _Stuff it stuff it stuff it get out of my head--_

Dr Mehta laughed, and the cigarette smoke grew thicker. Cordelia imagined it like a noose, coiling around Mehta's throat, tighter and tighter. Her fingers turned into claws, nails digging into the glass of the window, and she felt for a moment like a prisoner trying to claw her way out of--

_uterine replicators, seventeen of them, green lights flashing. A hillside. A hand through her hair. A voice... but no face, she needed to see the face, needed--_

"Cordelia?"

She practically leapt out of her skin and spun around, a deer in the headlights. Her mother stood in the doorway, one hand on the lightswitch.

"Oh. Mom. What are you doing up?" she asked. The memory fractured, started turning to smoke, falling through her fingers. _No!_ she thought, desperate. _Give them back! Give them all back!_

"I... went to the kitchen to get a drink." Was that an evasion there, a slight discomfort? "And I saw that you were up. I thought I'd just make sure that you're alright..."

"I'm f-f-fine." She swallowed. Forced herself to smile. "I saw a falling star. Though it's probably just a shuttle."

Her mother smiled, the brittleness of it failing to hide the concern in her eyes. "You've always been fascinated with the stars. Did you make a wish?"

"No," she said. No. Yes? Something nagged at the edge of her consciousness, slipping away the moment she tried to reach for it. "Should get back to bed. Work tomorrow."

Her mother nodded, gave her another uncertain glance. "Good night."

"Good night," Cordelia echoed, wondering what it was that made everyone look at her like she was made of glass. She'd been shot down at Escobar, spaced, woken up after a coma, but she was physically fine now, the doctors had all given her a clean bill of health. So why were there shadows ( _smoke and mirrors, mirrors and smoke_ ), and dreams that didn't seem like dreams?

She glanced at the window as her mother retreated, but the falling star had long vanished into the dark.


	2. Chapter 2

#### I. A Time to Break Down

There was a horse running loose over the fields.

Simon paused in his trek up the path to the Vorkosigan residence in Vorkosigan Surleau. The light of the mid-morning sun turned the horse's coat into a sheen of dark brown - _dark bay_ , his memory chip supplied, courtesy of some quick research from the night before. Possibly _chocolate buckskin_ , but that was a rarer allele, and General Count Vorkosigan's stock wasn't known to have any horses of that colour.

A single man followed the horse across the fields at a casual walk, a rope and halter dangling from one hand. The horse, which had paused to grab a mouthful of grass, raised its head at his approach and snorted, nostrils flaring. The man never varied his stride, looking for all the world like he was going for a morning stroll. He didn't even seem to be paying a lot of attention to his target. The horse studied him curiously as he approached, and Simon held his breath – then just as the man was close enough to almost reach out and touch the horse, it whirled on its haunches and trotted off at a lively pace to another corner of the field.

Seemingly unperturbed, the man varied his course and continued to follow it. It seemed like a test of patience. If this had been an ImpSec operation, Simon thought, he would have done things rather differently – setting up a cordon to block all escape routes, then getting a team to move in at speed with stunners. Possibly some spotters from the nearby trees, just in case the escapee had reinforcements, or in case this was just some clever diversion to draw them away from the main break out.

The horse finally permitted itself to be caught. Simon thought he saw some bribery in progress – some covert exchange of sugar lumps, maybe, then the man threw the head collar on and began leading the horse back to its stable. It seemed a little odd to Simon to reward the horse for breaking free and then leading his handler on a merry chase, but there you had it – you caught more bees with honey, the old saying went. Simon wondered if that saying would have been different if they had tractor beams back in the day.

He resumed his walk to the house, the crunch of leaves loud underfoot. A breeze eddied past, just a little crisp, and it lent an edge to the anticipation that was strumming quietly through Simon's fingertips. Autumn was beginning to unfurl here, and the tops of the trees were starting to blush with red. The season was turning, just a little earlier than the capital, just as a different sort of season was about to change in the political scene of Vorbarr Sultana. Simon didn't know the specifics, but he didn't have to – it had been evident for a while that Emperor Ezar was cleaning house in anticipation of his departure from it.

In any event, it was good to be the herald of good news for a change. He hadn't seen Vorkosigan since their return from Escobar and the inevitable clean up after that– no, his chip corrected, their last meeting had been a bit later than that, the day that Vorkosigan had resigned his commission. Simon had stood in the corridor outside the Emperor's room, trying and failing to find words to say to the only commander other than Negri to win his wholehearted respect. Vorkosigan had given him a suspicious, weary look then strode past, never looking back. Simon had whirled to watch him leave, unspoken words withering to dust on his tongue.

He had words now, ones that he hoped would revitalise Vorkosigan after his failure at Escobar. The man had sunk into depression, the ImpSec reports said, and Simon recalled the lifeless look in those eyes, and suppressed a shudder.

There was a grey-haired man walking down the path from the stables, and their paths intersected as Simon neared the house. It was the same man, Simon guessed, who had been trying to recapture the horse from earlier. Now that he could make out the features of the man's face, it wasn't difficult to cross reference them against the chip's artificial memory, and Simon drew himself up automatically, coming to attention as General Count Vorkosigan glanced over in his direction. "Sir," he said, and snapped off a salute.

Sharp eyes – Simon recognised the keenness of that gaze and knew now where Aral Vorkosigan got it from – took in the dress greens that he wore, the silver Horus-eye pins on his collar. "Commander," the General said, acknowledging the salute with an incline of his head, as befit a Count on his own grounds. "And what brings ImpSec itself to my doorstep?"

"Commander Illyan, Imperial Security," he said formally. "I come with a message for Lord Vorkosigan, from Emperor Ezar Vorbarra."

The General raised an eyebrow. "I see," he said. "I doubt Aral is out of bed. He usually isn't up before midday, of late." There was, to Simon's surprise, no hint of censure in the General's tone. A hint of weary acceptance, maybe.

"I can wait, sir," he replied. His own research had indicated a pattern in Vorkosigan's drinking – thorough intoxication on the first day, hang-over recovery on the second day, sobriety on the third, before repeating the cycle the next day. He had been conscientious in timing his visit to fall on day three.

"A message that must be delivered in person, then," the General said, then turned to the path up to the house with a gesture at him to follow.

"The Emperor was quite insistent, sir," Simon replied, then felt compelled to add, "One might dare to call it good news, however."

"Oh?" the General said, pausing by the door as liveried armsmen appeared out of nowhere to open it for him. He stepped across the threshold, and Simon followed. "That would make a welcome change. Aral has been … out of sorts, since that last mission."

An understatement, by all of ImpSec's accounts. "I had hoped that some time away from Vorbarr Sultana would have helped," Simon replied, a tangential probe for further information.

The General scowled. "Hardly. Inactivity is bad for him. I _told_ him not to resign..."

Simon remembered the energy that Vorkosigan possessed, and privately agreed with the General's assessment. That amount of drive, if not channelled into something productive, had great potential to be channelled into destructive pursuits instead. He only hoped that his news did not come too late.

"Sit," the General said, gesturing to a chair. They had made their way into one of the smaller sitting rooms off the main hall, a setup designed for four, perhaps six people. Upholstered chairs that probably cost more than what Simon earned in a year were arrayed around an elegantly carved wooden table, harking back to a more prosperous time for the Vorkosigan family. Self-consciously, Simon lowered himself into one of the chairs. The cushions sank beneath his weight, and he tried to convince himself that he was not doing irreparable damage to the fabrics.

The General, unaware or unconcerned about the dust on his clothes from the stable, sank into a chair opposite and crossed booted feet in front of him. His gaze was penetrating, but Simon was used to dealing with Ezar and Negri. He folded his hands on his lap, swallowing back the uneasiness that swam up from his gut into his throat. He'd anticipated the possibility that he would have to speak with Vorkosigan's father, had prepared extensively for it, but that sharp gaze still made him want to squirm and check if his uniform was absolutely correct, insignia polished to a shine.

"Aral spoke of you," the General said, after a pause. Simon felt anxiety surge through his veins at the thought of what Vorkosigan might have said, as though he was a green recruit hoping for a favourable report from his commander.

"I was with him at Escobar," he replied, neutral. It wasn't the best phrase to entice the General to divulge further information on the topic, but there was a large part of him that _didn't_ want to hear what Aral-- what Vorkosigan had said about him.

"So you were," the General replied thoughtfully. "An independent observer for the Emperor, he said. And I wonder – observer for what? Any observer should have been attached to the Prince. What exactly were you supposed to be observing, Commander?"

He should have expected General Vorkosigan to go right for the kill. For a moment, he considered hiding behind the safe, official answer that this was all classified, and a junior officer didn't question his orders when the Emperor said jump.

But if Vorkosigan had spoken of him, Simon hoped that Vorkosigan hadn't painted a picture of him as nothing more than a mobile vid-recorder for the Emperor, a shell with no mind of his own. Images came back to him, enhanced to perfect clarity by the chip, of months of shipboard duty, a routine thrown into complete disarray by the sudden arrival of Captain Naismith. Of Vorkosigan's orders to him, curt and tense, ringing with the air of authority - _Buy me forty eight hours, Illyan, that's all I ask!_ , of running through gunmetal corridors with his heart pounding in his mouth and ampules threatening to slip through sweaty palms. He had never been more terrified, and yet he had never felt more honoured, in that instant where Vorkosigan had looked to him as _one of his own_.

"A mediator," he said. "A representative of – in the Emperor's words – a cease-fire between the parties."

The General snorted – amused, Simon decided, and not derisive.

"Tensions were high on that ship," Simon continued. "And the Admiral was necessarily at a disadvantage, being subordinate to the Prince. I was there to even out the balance of power, to ensure that all parties would continue to operate as per the Emperor's orders."

"And you found it necessary to attach yourself to my son at all times?" the General asked. Simon sensed a train of thought moving beneath the surface of dark waters, but try as he might, he couldn't follow it.

"That was the Emperor's directive, sir." He frowned minutely, thinking it over. Why Vorkosigan, indeed? Why not the Prince, or Vorruyter, or … just attaching himself impartially to any and all meetings between them. Or a general observer aboard the ship? A mediator, even an official observer, should have been neutral, after all.

"One might theorise," he said slowly, because the General was giving him the same look that Negri did when he expected him to use his brain, "That there was a secondary objective of being security for Admiral Vorkosigan." But against what, precisely? Did the Emperor fear more for the life of Lord Vorkosigan than he did for the life of his own son? Serg had had no ImpSec observers attached to him, had little in the way of his own security, given that he was aboard the flagship...

"Security," the General repeated, and this time the snort was definitely derisive. "Why put them all in the same melting pot in the first place, then? No point having a good Admiral and then sticking him under a commander he can't work with. Your orders _weren't_ to make sure that Serg listened to sense, were they, boy?"

"No, sir," Simon replied slowly, wheels turning in his head. If Vorkosigan had been there to provide military expertise to the relatively inexperienced prince, well – Vorkosigan had blown it quite thoroughly. Thoroughly enough that it would have made no difference whether he'd been there or not, save that the fleet might have …

\--the rattling of tea cups interrupted his train of thought. An armsman appeared, pushing a covered trolley, and Simon found what the General termed a 'light' breakfast being laid out before them, fruit and pastry and enough cold meats to feed an entire family, in the district that Simon came from.

"They always go overboard when there are guests around," the General grumbled. "It's as though they think I'm starving to death or something. They seem to forget – ha! - that I had my fair share of ration bars and stale jerky." He stabbed a fork in Simon's direction. "Now Aral complains about the food – something about oatmeal and blue cheese – but we had none of that fancy shit back in the day."

"Trust me," a familiar voice said from the doorway. "I'd take stale jerky over oatmeal and blue cheese dressing _any day_."

Simon glanced over. Aral Vorkosigan was leaning against the door frame, a sardonic look on his face that only served to emphasise the general unhealthy _greyness_ of his complexion. The clashing riot of colour that was the tropical-print shirt he wore was absolutely no help. But worst of all was the dull lifelessness where once a fire had burned, complete and desolate. That loss, he thought, was all of Barrayar's loss.

"Sir," he said, rising to his feet. Vorkosigan gave him a sharp look.

"Sit down, Illyan. I'm retired, remember?" His eyes racked him up and down. "Dress greens, good God. What did I ever do to deserve this?"

As warm and welcoming as an iceberg. Vorkosigan was clearly not happy to see him, and Simon swallowed a sense of frustrated disappointment. He'd hoped – no, nevermind. "Lord Vorkosigan," he said, retreating behind formality. "I'm here with a personal message from Emperor Ezar."

Cool disinterest flooded Vorkosigan's face. With a groan, he snatched a roll from the basket and bit viciously into it, dropping into another of those antique chairs with the same callous disregard that his father had shown. "Spare me. He and I are through."

Simon remained standing. "You might be interested to hear him out, sir."

"No," Vorkosigan replied, sharp and suddenly vicious. "No, I'm not. And you can tell him that."

" _Sir,_ " Simon said, with emphasis. This was not the way he'd hoped that things would go.

"Oh hear him out," the General said, sighing noisily. "It's not like you can keep sulking around like this forever, boy. Whatever Ezar has to say, it can't be that bad."

Aral muttered something that sounded remarkably like a petulant _yes it can_ , before downing a cup of coffee then gesturing sharply at the door. Simon trailed after him, feeling vaguely lost, as Aral stormed out.

They took a short walk down the corridor, where a door near the end opened into a small study with a commconsole desk. Vorkosigan threw himself into the seat before it and all but glared at up him. "Well," he said. "I suppose there's not going to be any peace around here until you deliver that blasted message."

Definitely not the way he had hoped it would go. Feared, yes. "The Emperor sends his compliments, sir, and hopes that this message finds you well."

Vorkosigan's lip curled. "I trust that Ezar knows _exactly_ how well I am."

_'Hope' is different from 'know',_ Simon wanted to shoot back, tired of Vorkosigan's fey temper already, but years of military training made him hold his tongue. "He has also extended a personal invitation to you to attend on him in Vorbarr Sultana at your earliest convenience. I am given to understand," he said hurriedly, because Vorkosigan's face had just darkened at the summons, "That this involves a promotion."

Vorkosigan's steadily darkening expression froze to absolute stillness. Simon held his breath.

Then with a bang that made him jump, Vorkosigan all but flung himself out the chair, pacing the room like a caged animal. "A _promotion_? For fuck's sake, old man – done is done and through is through... _what more do you want of me_?"

Like any good analyst, Simon had run through a number of worst-case scenarios in his head before this mission. But he hadn't even begun to imagine a reaction such as this. "Sir?" he ventured, and Vorkosigan's head whipped around, his gaze pinning him in place like a butterfly to a board.

"I believe," Vorkosigan bit out, fury colouring each word, "That I told Ezar at our last meeting that we were absolutely done. That my resignation was final. Irrevocable. That I want nothing more to do with Imperial Service. You can go and tell him that." He glanced away again, resumed his pacing. "Green silk rooms," he muttered. "I'm done with that. I am _so done with that._ "

He didn't understand Vorkosigan's reaction at all, but he felt compelled to try to reason, anyway. "Sir, if this is about the Escobar defeat, I can assure you that no one regards that as your fault. The fact that the Emperor saw fit to promote you after that and is now extending this offer—"

" _Escobar_." Simon had never heard Vorkosigan's voice drip with such venom before. "And what do you know about Escobar?"

He hardly knew what to say. "I was _there_ , sir."

Vorkosigan glanced at him again, and just like that, the anger seemed to drain away from him. A shadow passed over his face, making him look even more worn out and exhausted than before, and he leaned against the wall, staring out the window. "So you were," he said, and the words were just a murmur.

There was too much here that he didn't understand. He'd thought – just as many others had thought – that Vorkosigan took the defeat at Escobar personally. A failure like that could cripple a man. Vorkosigan had risen to the top too quickly, it was said, had no shadow of defeat on him except for that Komarr incident, which wasn't really a defeat anyway. This was the first major loss he'd suffered, of course he'd be shocked by it, what a loss it was...

"I don't believe that the post the Emperor has in mind involves a military operation," Simon said, uneasily.

"And what do you know about this new post?" Vorkosigan said, sarcasm leaking into his voice. "Has Ezar told you what it is?"

Ezar hadn't. Simon bit his lip. "You sound like you know exactly what it is he's offering."

Vorkosigan sighed. His hand curled into a fist, and fell open again. "Yes," he said on an exhale. "Yes, I do."

Simon hadn't felt this far out of his league in a long time. "Then I take it that you won't come to the capital."

"Ezar, I note, didn't Request and Require my presence," Vorkosigan pointed out.

"No sir. He didn't." And Simon didn't know why the Emperor hadn't, except that it was probably a bad idea to drag Vorkosigan to Vorbarr Sultana against his will, if one wanted him to take up a new post at the end of it. The interview, he sensed, had been conducted here, in Vorkosigan Surleau, and Vorkosigan had just rejected the offer. Simon wished he didn't feel directly responsible for the failure.

Vorkosigan shrugged, his attention clearly gone. He stared out of the window, eyes unfocused and unseeing, looking at... whatever personal demons haunted him. There was, Simon sensed, nothing to gain in pursuing the matter further. He gave Vorkosigan a salute that wasn't returned, then let himself out.

The autumn leaves crunched underfoot as he made his way down the path and back to his lightflyer. This time, they just looked withered, heralds of the death that winter would bring.


	3. Chapter 3

There weren't any chairs outside Negri's office at ImpSec HQ. Simon leaned against the wall and tried not to fidget. The air conditioning was set to freezing, and a large part of him wished that he was still wandering up a leaf-strewn path in the warmth of a late summer sun.

Not that he wanted to step foot in Vorkosigan Surleau ever again. The look in Vorkosigan's eyes...

The Head of Domestic Affairs stepped out of Negri's office, looking visibly rattled. His eyes passed over Simon, registered only the Commander rank tabs, and passed on. Simon didn't watch him leave – a single glance was enough to register his face in the archives of his artificial memory.

He wasn't in HQ often enough, he thought. There were perhaps a handful of people who recognised him, and most of them worked for the Emperor's security detail. The life of galactic operations and even so-called regular ImpSec duty seemed a distant thing, dreams that fell behind the bright line that divided his life into before-the-chip and after-the-chip.

"The Chief will see you now, Commander," Negri's secretary nodded at him. He paused, and lowered his voice. "And good luck, sir."

Simon winced. "Thank you."

There were times that Simon wished that he had any need to take notes, if only because it would give him a reason to cling onto a clipboard or some other innocent shield. This was very much one of those times.

Negri was seated behind his huge commconsole desk, and there wasn't a chair in sight here either. This was unsurprising – Simon was familiar with Negri's philosophy that if the news was good, you hardly needed to be in the Chief's office long enough to need the chair; and if the news was bad, you wouldn't want to be seated, anyway. That there were exceptions to this seemed to go largely unheeded.

"Sir," he said, and came to attention. Negri waved off his salute like he was waving off a fly.

"What was his reaction?"

Straight, blunt, to the point. Simon hadn't expected anything else, but although he'd rehearsed and prepared this report, it was still surprisingly difficult to divorce the facts of the matter from the sudden surge of emotion as he recalled the look of – anger? Hostility? - in Vorkosigan's expression. "Negative," he said. "It was fairly clear that he did not welcome my presence--" he was surprised that the words came out smoothly, without the turmoil that they still conjured in him "–and he made it very clear that he had absolutely no intention of responding to the Emperor's invitation."

Negri made a noise that sounded suspiciously like _ha!_. "And did you tell him what the position was?"

"I wasn't informed, sir." But clearly, he should have worked it out, if the look that Negri was giving him was any indication. "And it would not have been appropriate to speculate. Or necessary, in the circumstances. Admiral Vorkosigan was very certain that he knew what the invitation was for."

Negri grunted and leaned back. "It's not often that Ezar makes mistakes, but it would seem that this was a complete miss for him."

Of late, it seemed that the ImpSec Chief thought that the memory chip made Simon a mindreader as well. And although he worked closely enough with Negri to know him better than most, this twist evaded him. He allowed some of his puzzlement to rise to the surface of his expression.

Negri steepled his fingers and regarded him unwaveringly over the tops of them. "Ezar counted on Vorkosigan being bored enough to accept his summons, particularly if they were delivered by a familiar face." His eyes narrowed, and Simon guessed that this had been a point that Negri had argued with Ezar over. And lost, by the looks of it.

There was relief, of a sort, that Negri wasn't going to ream him a new one for failing this particular assignment. He'd spent the entire flight back with that possibility hanging dark over his head as he'd considered, belatedly, why Negri would send a Commander to do a simple courier's job. Clearly, he had reasoned, Negri had counted on his association with Vorkosigan increasing the chances of a positive response. The spectre of his failure, along with its contingents of what-ifs, had dogged him every long mile back from Vorkosigan Surleau.

"And how is Vorkosigan?" Negri asked, not a casual question at all. "As bad as the reports suggest?"

Simon suppressed a grimace. "Worse, I'd say." How did he even begin to describe the emptiness in that gaze, the natural, effortless aura of command turned into something so fey and destructive? "He seemed a completely different person from the man he was before Escobar."

Negri nodded, as though he'd expected this all along. He probably had. "Well. If this can't be done the easy way..."

Simon felt his eyes widen. "You can't be proposing to force the issue--"

"Hardly." The look that Negri shot him was sardonic. "You know as well as I do that that never ends well, where it concerns Vorkosigan. Any Vorkosigan, for that matter. No. It's clear that Vorkosigan's mental state has not improved on its own, and I'm highly doubtful that it will. The way he is now – there isn't even any point in dragging him back to Vorbarr Sultana. He's in no state to command himself, much less anyone around him."

Simon winced.

“So,” Negri said, in a tone that Simon had learnt spelt nothing but trouble. “Congratulations, Commander. Your new assignment is to drag Vorkosigan out of his pity party and beat him into some semblance of what he was before, by whatever means necessary.”

Simon felt his expression freeze automatically into blandness as he tried to convince himself that he hadn’t just heard what he’d thought he’d heard. But the chip didn’t lie, and was all too willing to play it back again, and again, and _again_ , however many times he felt the need to test it. The silence stretched. Negri continued watching him. Finally, the Chief seemed to grow tired of the game. Breaking eye contact, he turned his attention to the papers on his desk. “You appear to be casting a shadow, Illyan.”

Simon had to work his jaw a few times before he could convince it to move. “ _How?_ ” he asked, the word coming out just a little strangled.

Negri huffed a sigh. “Try applying that mind of yours to the question before running to me for help, will you?”

It was a clear dismissal. Under pressure, Simon thought hard, and fast. “This all leads back to Escobar, doesn’t it? That’s when it first started. It’s _not_ survivor’s guilt, I don’t think. And I don’t think it’s anything as simple as that being his first major military defeat.” He’d have to check Vorkosigan’s early records, but his gut told him that Vorkosigan wasn’t the kind of man who would let himself be brought down by a losing battle. Everyone who’d passed through officer’s training was familiar with the fact that the name of Vorkosigan was practically synonymous with _tenacity_.

His conversation with Vorkosigan's father came back to him, the chip recalling the exchange effortlessly.

_Your orders_ weren't _to make sure that Serg listened to sense, were they..._

The Count had been driving at something – hinting, maybe. Trying to discern for himself, maybe. But caught under Negri's freezing gaze, without the luxury of time to mull over the problem slowly, Simon found that the implications of the Count's line of questioning continued to evade him.

_Why put them all in the same melting pot in the first place, then? No point having a good Admiral and then sticking him under a commander he can't work with._

Why indeed?

"Escobar," Negri said, neither confirmation nor denial. But the expectancy in that single word betrayed the fact that he had hit something on the head.

"What _is_ it about Escobar that you're not telling me?" Simon asked.

Negri folded his arms and leaned back, looking at him consideringly. "It's classified."

"Surely I'm on the need-to-know list," Simon shot back, "Considering my latest assignment and all."

"Perhaps," Negri said, implacable, then moved to hit a button on his commconsole. The door to his office slid open, a clear sign that his time was up, and no further information would be forthcoming. "I'll be looking forward to your report."

There really was no point in pushing him any further. "Sir," Simon said – sighed – and left.

*

Trailing despondently out of Negri's office, he ran across the Vice Head of Komarran Affairs standing outside, looking decidedly frazzled. At least, Simon thought to himself, there were officers in this outfit who actually had worse jobs than he did – ImpSec Komarr went through its Heads at the rate of approximately one in three months, and he imagined that the aftermath of Escobar must have ignited a bonfire under the separatist movement.

Negri's secretary gave him a sympathetic look, and Simon dredged up a smile that he hoped was somewhat reassuring, wondering – not for the first time – why Negri never gave him the _easy_ assignments. Covert ops he could handle, but this – this was so far out of his league that he wasn't even sure how to start. _Pity party,_ he thought, and the chip cross referenced that to his newest set of orders, and he sighed under his breath.

Information, first. He needed data, needed to know what Negri clearly thought he had to know but wasn't telling him - _couldn't_ tell him, maybe, which had to be a clue in itself. His security clearances were of the highest order, given that he'd attended on almost every high level meeting between Ezar and his advisers in the last two years, before he'd set off for Escobar with Vorkosigan.

Almost, but not all. There had been a number where he'd been asked to cool his heels in the corridor outside the room. Meetings where Ezar had closeted himself with Negri ... and Vorkosigan. And no one else.

Simon stopped dead in his tracks, right in the middle of a corridor. A Colonel nearly slammed into him, and snarled angrily at him. Apologising profusely, Simon melted to the side of the corridor to let him pass, and frowned thoughtfully at his retreating back. Vorkosigan had snarled at him too - _What do you know about Escobar_ – what did he know, indeed? He'd been right there. Whatever had happened with Vorkosigan must have happened right under his nose.

He needed to sit down and think this through, properly. He had a desk in HQ, but he'd found out long ago that it wasn't the most conducive place to _think_. ImpSec HQ was always a non-stop buzz of activity, the complete opposite of the silence of the Residence that Simon had gotten used to, and he found that the chip tracked all that ambient noise as well, recording it and attempting to play it back when his attention so much as wandered. And there was the _other_ reason why he didn't like working at it...

He heard the noise level in room _drop_ the moment he entered. Ten pairs of eyes turned to look at him, then quickly turned back to their work. He met none of their gazes, keeping his head down and trying his best to remain invisible, as he made his way quietly to the cubicle near the back of the room. The conversations started up again, very slowly, everyone careful to keep their discussion to safe, official topics.

He was used to it, he told himself – it was something he had learnt to live with ever since he'd returned from Illyrica. ...Except that he wasn't. Except that he'd gotten used to being the shadow of the man who was confident enough in himself not to care about what he looked like in the eyes of another.

He dropped into his chair, powered up his commconsole and logged into the personnel database. It was a moment's effort to pull up Vorkosigan's military history and run his eyes over it, dumping all the information to his chip, even while his mind went off on its own tangents. Ezar had treated him like a vid-recorder, and he'd lived with it, because Ezar was the Emperor of three worlds, and he'd been nothing more than a Lieutenant, barely a blip on the radar. But then he'd come back to HQ after Escobar to find that none of his brother officers wanted anything to do with him. Whispers and rumours abounded that he remained directly in Negri's chain of command because no commander wanted him under them, and no team mate would ever work with the vid-recorder on legs watching their every move.

How was that different from organic memory, he wondered, glancing absently over Vorkosigan's Escobar record. Vorkosigan's _official_ Escobar record, which didn't say anything that Simon didn't already know. How was it that perfect recall made people see him as simply the vessel that contained the recorder, when really, the human memory was capable of great feats all on its own?

_Pity party,_ he reminded himself, and shoved those thoughts aside, hunkered down instead and forcing himself to concentrate on his research. His fingers flew across the keyboard, pulling up every reference on Escobar and dumping the files to his artificial memory, without bothering to process. He'd sort through it later – not that, he thought, any of the official records would say much of anything at all. The key lay in Vorkosigan, and Vorkosigan had said--

_Green silk rooms. I'm done with that. I am so done with that._

Simon frowned. Official casualty lists blazed past his eyes. _Prince Serg Vorbarra_.

_Theory: Vorkosigan is tasked with Serg's protection, and fails,_ Simon thought, and moved it to his short list.

But - _I told Ezar at our last meeting that we were absolutely done,_ Vorkosigan had said. Simon frowned at his screen, put a question mark at the end of his theory, and accidentally sighed out loud.

The noise level in the room dropped again. Instantly.

_This_ was why working in HQ was unbearable. Fed up, Simon deactivated his console and opted to walk out, instead. At least, with the memory chip, there was no difficulty in bringing all of his work home with him.

*

Home, in this instance, was a shoebox apartment in an older part of Vorbarr Sultana. The area he stayed in was technically on the borders of the caravanserai, but developments over the years had pushed that boundary back until it was its own respectable, if not particularly upmarket, neighbourhood. More importantly, for a place fairly close to ImpSec HQ, the rental was actually low enough for a junior officer to afford.

He hadn't been home in a while. The apartment smelt of cardboard boxes, courtesy of the fact that he'd never really bothered to unpack since he'd moved in. As he flicked on the lights to ward off the growing darkness – the apartment was usually in shadow, dwarfed by the taller, newer developments around it – he allowed his eyes to rove around it in the long ingrained habit of searching for signs of tampering.

It was hard to believe that, just this morning, he'd been sitting on furniture older than he was, in a house that was probably more than ten times the size of his apartment. Vorkosigan lived in a world so far removed from his that seeing his own modest accommodation practically gave him mental whiplash. Nevermind antique furniture, he hadn't even had time to go furniture shopping since Escobar had just been a mad gleam in Serg's eye (never felt the need to, when he slept in a guest room at the Imperial Residence or one of the apartments at ImpSec HQ most of the time). He hadn't realised, before now, how _bare_ the entire place was. He'd _thought_ he'd preferred the clean, uncluttered look hadn't he? He'd thought, back in officer's training, that when he finally had a place to call his own, he'd go for the ship-board look, white walls, recessed lightning, chrome lines everywhere.

He ran a finger through the fine layer of dust on the kitchen counter, and thought of ships, flicking through memories of the Escobar invasion fleet on his chip like one might flick through the pages of a magazine. Vorkosigan scowling, irritable at the end of a long day; Vorkosigan laughing, a quiet joke shared between him and Admiral Vorhalas; Vorkosigan hunched over the tactical computer, frowning in concentration as he ran simulations for retreat plans. Over and over again.

_He was there to supervise a retreat, in the event it all went wrong,_ Simon thought, absently loading the coffee maker and watching it stupidly for a moment before he realised that he'd forgotten to switch it on. If Vorkosigan's very role had been to supervise the retreat and protect the prince in the event that it all went bad, then he had failed the moment he'd allowed the flagship to head off to the front line.

The percolator gurgled and hissed, and began spitting out coffee. Simon stared at it, his mind a thousand light years away. Vorkosigan, waiting anxiously in his cabin, flicking through tactical updates. Vorkosigan, striking his fist on the desk, expression twisted with rage, grief, nausea. Vorkosigan, watching, and waiting – and only truly coming alive after Commander Venne's confirmation that the flagship had been destroyed.

A single conclusion sliced through the inadequate theories swirling through his mind, with the heart-stopping certainty that told him, even without having run the analysis through to its conclusion, that _this was the truth_. A conclusion of death, of darkness, of macabre dances in the shadows. A scheme of coldly, deliberately, pre-meditated _murder_. Simon's back hit the kitchen cabinets as he stumbled backwards under the shock of it, and slid, very slowly, to the floor.

*

"Illyan." Even over a comm unit, Negri managed to convey enough threat in his voice to make Simon's spine stiffen involuntarily. "Do you mind telling me why you haven't seen fit to report to work for two days?"

Two days? He glanced groggily at the clock on his commconsole, then shook his head and pulled up the calendar. Two days.

"I have been at work, sir," his mouth said, before his brain could stop it. "I mean – I've been working on a problem..."

"From the comfort of your apartment," Negri said, very dry. "I may not have your memory, Commander, but I distinctly recall something about orders to do with Vorkosigan."

"He'll be drunk--" Simon smacked his forehead and forced himself to focus. "I've been working on that problem. But first I needed to understand what is it - _why_ is it – that Vorkosigan's gone into this downward spiral." He took a breath. "I think … I might have figured it out. Sir."

"Have you, now," Negri said, almost disinterested.

"Escobar," Simon said, very simply.

Negri's expression didn't change, but there was something about his entire demeanor that was suddenly very still. "My Residence office in fifteen minutes, Commander. Move it."

"Sir." He'd have to run the whole way. Cursing, he flung himself out of his chair and made a dash for the door.

 

Negri's office in the Imperial Residence was done up in pale, sky-blue silk. Simon thought of Aral's comment about green silk rooms, and suppressed a shudder. "Sir," he said, resisting the urge to grab at his knees and wheeze. Eighteen minutes, because of traffic lights, running as fast as he could through Vorbarr Sultana.

Negri was standing at the window, looking out the narrow gap between the curtains. He didn't turn around. The tension in the room was thick enough to choke on, and Simon had the sinking feeling that if this session didn't go exactly as Negri wished, the only way that he was leaving this room was as a corpse.

"I trust," Negri said, "That you've prepared a summary of your conclusions."

"Yes sir." His heart was thumping furiously, and it had nothing to do with the dash he'd just made from his apartment.

Negri sighed heavily, and Simon had to repress a stab of annoyance. _What else did you expect me to do when you dumped me with this assignment? Turn up on Vorkosigan's doorstep with a bottle of feel-good pills? Or a squad of ImpSec men, to drag him back to Vorbarr Sultana?_

Negri waved a hand. "So tell me what you've deduced."

There was a control device to the chip, a play-back button that only Negri and Ezar had access to, a measure that allowed them to bypass his active mind and force a verbal recount of the data stored in his head. More effective than fast-penta, and more _intrusive_. Negri wasn't using it now, for which he was grateful, but the knowledge that it was there always sat heavily on his mind.

He'd told Vorkosigan before that he was incapable of altering his report. Vorkosigan had assumed that it was the function of duty, something born out of fealty and nothing more or less substantial than the oaths that they had sworn to their Emperor. Simon had never bothered to correct that assumption.

_But who am I to complain about being the Emperor's tool, next to you?_ he thought.

"I have two theories," he said. "Both of them rest on the reasoned conjuncture that Vorkosigan was aware of the plasma mirror technology, and failed to pass this information on with due speed. There is, as it were, a small but remote chance that he did in fact interrogate Captain Naismith and uncovered the information directly before the tactical reports that the fleet had been destroyed came back, but--" he shook his head. "Even then, he wouldn't have waited calmly for the reports before making mention of it. He wasn't surprised."

Negri turned to watch him, folding his arms and leaning against the wall.

"Assuming that Vorkosigan had that piece of information beforehand, then the fact that he deliberately withheld it points at two possibilities. The first: Vorkosigan was – is a traitor – who did this with the deliberate intention of sabotaging the Escobar invasion, driving the prince to his death along with it." He raised his eyes to meet Negri's. "But that theory fails, because _you_ weren't surprised when I brought the news back to you." He remembered that debriefing, with the certainty that told him it was seared into his organic memory and not just his artificial one, as hours upon hours of marathon recollection, Negri patiently and methodically pulling every detail out of him.

"Go on," Negri said. If he felt any surprise at the fact that Simon had been able to observe and dissect his reactions while being mechanically debriefed, he showed no sign of it.

He curled his fingers into a fist, nails biting into the palm of his hand. "Which leads to the other theory – which is that the Emperor himself was already aware of this development – before Escobar. That Vorkosigan wasn't the architect or instigator of the massacre; he was only the one chosen to effect it. Which would explain, entirely, his present … state."

Negri's expression hadn't so much as wavered, which told Simon everything he needed to know. He had to fight against the urge to close his eyes and drop into the same yawning abyss of despair that Vorkosigan had.

_Your orders weren't to make sure that Serg listened to sense, were they?_ General Count Vorkosigan had asked.

No, his role had been to make sure that no one got close enough to Vorkosigan to either uncover the truth, or to stop him. A cease-fire, just long enough for the Emperor himself to plunge the dagger between the Prince's ribs.

"Have you spoken to anyone about this?" Negri said.

Simon shook his head, emotion roiling through him, too furious and complicated for him to sort out. "Nor will I," he said. "I have no intention of starting a war."

"Your analysis is accurate, so far," Negri told him, without preamble. "I scarcely need to impress upon you how important it is that this never becomes known to the outside world."

It was almost a relief to hear it, to escape from the temptation to dig out other theories, other sweeter lies and fairytales, _anything_ to sidle away from the truth. He'd spent the past two days curled up in a corner of his apartment, running through the chip's memory, minute by minute, trying and trying and _failing_ to come up with something other than the inevitable. He'd barely slept, but when he had, his dreams had been scattered fragments of nightmares, memory and imagination and guilt all rolled into one.

He felt the rising need for a drink. His chip – no, it was his imagination, he realised – supplied him with an image, of a table and two chairs on the porch of Vorkosigan's house, and a bottle of maple mead. Temptation seized him, to tear the silver eyes from his collar and fling them onto Negri's desk, and then take the lightflyer to Vorkosigan's District. Surely Vorkosigan would appreciate a drinking companion...

It was with some reluctance that he pulled himself away from that thought. He was not a Vor lord, to retreat into an early retirement, with resources to start anew if he so chose. More likely a ditch in the caravanserai, somewhere, with a cheap bottle of rotgut, waiting for Negri's assassins to come and make sure that the Imperium's secrets followed him to the grave.

"Commander," Negri said, and Simon had to blink twice before he managed to salvage his focus.

"Sir."

"As far as we are concerned, nothing has changed," Negri said. "The War Party, hungry for glory, took the battle to Escobar, and the operation failed due to inadequate intelligence and Betan intervention. The Prince fought bravely, fell in battle, and Vorkosigan commanded the retreat. The fact that we anticipated the possibility does not change the facts."

"Only the possibility that we might have changed the outcome," Simon shot back, then bit his tongue, surprised at his own uncharacteristic insubordination.

"Ah," Negri said, smiling sourly. "Vorkosigan's bad habits are rubbing off onto you. Possibility, as you know, is not reality. They tell me that you're good at keeping realities separate in your head; are you going to beat yourself up over might-have-beens?" He moved, stalking over to his desk. Placed his hands on the surface of it and stared into Simon's eyes. Into his very soul, it felt like.

"Mad Emperor Yuri died by the death of a thousand cuts," Negri continued, when Simon found no words to fill the silence between them. "But you can scarcely blame the sword for his death."

Simon shook his head. "Surely we're more than metal."

"And yet as helpless to do anything about the blow as a sword that is swung," Negri told him. "Don't flatter yourself, Commander."

_Not so helpless,_ Simon thought. _Unlike the sword, we can choose whose hand we would put ourselves into, and we can still pull a strike..._

The thought bordered on outright treason. "Sir," he said, quietly.

"Still unconvinced, I see," Negri said, then shrugged, taking his seat at the commconsole desk and turning his attention to his console. "Take the weekend off. Go think about your assignment. If you cannot convince yourself, there's no way you can convince Vorkosigan."

There was nothing left to be said. Simon turned, and let himself out.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay. Life, the universe, everything. At least I'm better equipped to write about wallowing in the absolute pits of despair now, which is great because there's so much of it in the chapter?

Once, prior to Escobar, there might have been brother officers that Simon could have called up for a casual drink on a Friday evening. Before the chip, there certainly had been. But those that the chip hadn't taken from him, time had – some had died at Escobar itself, others had moved on, falling in love and starting families, or gone on postings to distant stars.

Of those that remained, Simon didn't feel inclined to call; it was as though a shadow had fallen between him and the rest of the world. That he shared that shadow with the likes of Vorkosigan, Negri, and the Emperor himself, didn't make it any better.

He walked, when he left Negri's office. His footsteps veered towards a park, brought him a few wandering, aimless circuits, then sent him towards home when the sky deepened towards dusk. His mind felt numb, hollowed out, and the chip cycled through image after image of Vorkosigan. He saw, as though for the first time, the bleakness in those eyes, long before the Prince had ever died; the look of a soldier resigned to death in the battle to come. He saw, momentarily, the melting of the ice when Captain Naismith crashed into Vorkosigan's life again, and recognised now the hope that had risen in Vorkosigan – a hope uncalled for, and unlooked for.

But Naismith had gone again, bringing that light with her, and even duty, once discharged, had fled. And so Vorkosigan had plummeted, with nothing and no one to catch him.

And now Negri wanted him to drag Vorkosigan out of that abyss; he, who was so inextricably linked with the entire Escobar affair that there was no way Vorkosigan would ever forget it.

 _And to what end?_ he wondered. A dark night, a deeper plot, another prince to murder? Surely Prince Gregor was too young to have done anything to warrant a death sentence – unless Ezar himself had gone as mad as Yuri.

He'd thought to head home. He looked up, and found that he had walked past his apartment, heading instead towards the fringes of the caravanserai. He paused, suddenly aimless. Groundcars streaked past, swift and uncaring, in the blare of lights and the drone of engines. Streetlamps flickered as they came on, casting sharply defined pools of light onto shadowed walkways. A drop splashed from the heavens onto his cheek, followed by another that drummed onto his shoulders. A long night, a cold night, stretched out before him, the promise of an uninhabited apartment with only his thoughts of Escobar for company. He would almost have preferred to report for duty – no, he wouldn't. He didn't want anything to do with Imperial Service tonight.

That thought helped him to make up his mind. Turning on a heel, he headed back towards his apartment.

 

Half an hour later found him ensconced in a watering hole in a discrete part of the caravanserai. _Tavern_ or _pub_ might have been too refined a word for this particular establishment, but he remembered it as being one of the places that was, if not friendly to officers, at least not outwardly hostile. To be safe, he was decked out in a set of civvies hastily scrounged up from his apartment. They'd come out of a box and were rather desperately in need of an iron, and the coat he'd thrown on was a threadbare thing from his student days, but no one gave him a second look when he walked in and took up a corner table with his back to the wall.

The first drink calmed the turmoil racing through him. The second gave him some distance, some clarity of mind. The third simply seemed like a good idea.

The fourth reminded him why he didn't drink. The chip, if anything, had gotten louder rather than softer, and images crashed randomly through his brain, memories spiralling madly out of control. He steered the chip away from Escobar with sheer force of will, settled instead on a generic, calming scene of forests and lakes, only to have it turn to leaves on grass, then the walk up the hillside to Vorkosigan House. General Count Vorkosigan met him at the door, and the alcohol induced haze in his brain turned the General's face to Serg's.

 _Betrayer_ , the phantom said, and he shook his head violently and took another gulp of his drink, and the image shattered, giving way to Ezar, standing in the shadows beside a narrow strip of light from his window.

 _I am dying, Illyan,_ the man said, and Simon thought it might be a memory and not his imagination, but it was becoming harder to keep the two apart. _Who will guard my empire when I am gone?_

 _Who indeed?_ Simon thought, despair pummeling him from all sides. _And what is left of the empire that we serve?_

Vorruyter fell, blood gushing from his throat, and his face turned into Gregor's. Simon held his hands to the wound, desperate, and the blood washed over his fingers, staining them red.

 _Will you save him?_ Negri asked dryly, over his shoulder. _Imagine the consequences if he were to live, another Mad Emperor Yuri..._

Simon clutched at his head. _We don't know,_ he said, _We don't know that!_

 _Then save Vorkosigan,_ Negri said, dispassionate as ever, _For we need a sword to do the deed._

He'd drained his glass again. He wasn't sure when it had happened. His shaking hands poured another from the bottle despite himself. _Just voices_ , he told himself firmly. He was Imperial Service; they lived to serve, didn't they? If he doubted the integrity of his orders, the integrity of the man he was called to serve, then where did it end, except in blood and tears, and the fires of rebellion?

 _But_ , the chip asked him, except that he knew the voice was his own, _How can you go back to serving Ezar, knowing all you know, knowing all he's done?_

He had a crazy idea of dropping everything and running to the Residence. His mind's eye provided him with a suitably grand entrance, flinging open the double-doors to Ezar's suites, leaving his Armsmen in shock. Storming up to the royal bed like a returning angel of justice, demanding an explanation.

He laughed despite himself; the scene turned to the Armsmen dropping him in his tracks with stunners – if they were even so kind. At least, he thought darkly, he wouldn't need to think any more, after that.

 _Vid-recorder,_ Ezar called him. _Sword,_ Negri said, and _don't flatter yourself._ His gaze travelled of its own accord to the ceiling, which was wood beamed and ancient, and scruffed – how did a ceiling become scuffed? He raised his glass in salute to it, a fellow scarred veteran, but the clink of another glass against his own was very real. Shocked, he sat bolt upright, and came face to face with--

\--Vorkosigan gave him a tight smile, saluted him with his glass, and drank deeply.

"V-" he started to say, when his chip kicked him soundly and reminded him of the kind of establishment he was in. "—Aral."

"Fancy seeing you here," Vorkosigan said, and helped himself to his bottle. "Simon."

"Don't drink that," Simon said quickly. "That's--"

Too late. Vorkosigan made a face and gave him a look. "Trying to kill yourself by alcohol? There are cleaner ways of doing it." The sardonic lilt to his voice suggested that he had thought of all of them.

"You would know," Simon mumbled, and pulled the bottle closer to him. "What are you doing here?"

"What are _you_ doing here?" Vorkosigan said. "This is _my_ watering hole."

Too late, Simon remembered how he knew that this establishment was Imperial officer friendly. He swore under his breath.

Vorkosigan placed a hand on his arm. Simon jumped despite himself, and despite the alcohol. "Does this have anything to do with your visit to me, the other day?" Vorkosigan asked, and the concern in his voice made Simon blink.

"No-- yes-- no," Simon said, then realised what it must have looked like. "Negri didn't fire me, if that's what you're asking."

Vorkosigan seemed to relax a fraction. "Ah good. I saw you in the corner – in civvies, no less – and thought that the worst had happened. I owe you an apology."

"No," Simon said, then his tongue tripped over itself before he could explain. "I—" he waved vaguely. Coherency had left the party a while ago, and standing in the doorway hollering for it to come back wasn't working. 

"My answer remains the same," Vorkosigan said, firmly overriding him. As always. "But I could have expressed it better. I apologise."

" _No,_ " Simon said insistently, although he had the vague feeling that it was about as effective as a comet hurling itself at the sun in a bid to get the sun to move. "No. I-- I know why you reacted the way you did. I didn't know then, but I do now."

Vorkosigan had gone very still. "What do you mean by that?"

He didn't know how to explain it without leaking the Imperium's state secrets in every direction. "Swords," he said, a little helplessly. "He said you can't blame the sword, but they get bloody anyway, don't they?" He closed his eyes briefly. "I didn't know. I should have known. I was there, as you said."

The ghost of Escobar reared its hideous head between them, and the face it wore was Serg's.

"Simon." Vorkosigan reached through the apparition to clap him on the shoulder, and his voice was pained. "We shouldn't discuss this here. Come with me."

He stood without conscious thought, and it didn't matter at all that Vorkosigan wasn't his commanding officer any more. That Vorkosigan had never, actually been his commanding officer. The room spun for a moment, then Vorkosigan placed a hand on his back to steady him.

There were private rooms on the second floor. Vorkosigan grabbed a bottle and glasses from the counter as he passed, and Simon, out of sheer ingrained paranoid habit, tried and failed to scope the room for bugs before Vorkosigan shoved him into one of the chairs. "You're off duty," Vorkosigan pointed out.

"But the rest of ImpSec isn't. And goodness knows who else." He cast a tired eye around, feeling the effects of two days of bad sleep and a bottle of bad alcohol all catching up with him at the same time.

Vorkosigan shrugged. "Then don't name names. I'm sure you know how to do that."

"Perhaps," Simon admitted, then cast a look at the glass that Vorkosigan placed in front of him. The liquid within glowed a rich amber. "This isn't... your District's speciality, is it?"

Vorkosigan smirked. "It's a close second." He lifted his glass. "To broken swords."

Simon met his eyes, and raised his glass as well. The clink seemed particularly loud in the silence, and the whisky burned all the way down.

"So," Vorkosigan said. "They told you the truth about that mission."

Simon sighed. "Negri told me to go figure it out." He ran a finger over the top of his glass. "I know now why you won't come back. And to be perfectly honest, I don't blame you one bit."

"Ah," Vorkosigan said. "But – let me guess. Negri wants you to drag me back, doesn't he?"

Simon took another mouthful from his glass, and said nothing. The look Vorkosigan gave him was knowing, and somehow sympathetic.

"Drinking, you know, doesn't solve anything," Vorkosigan said. "I know this makes me a flaming hypocrit--"

"It also makes you an expert, I expect," Simon said without thinking. "Sorry, sir. That was--"

"Unless I'm much mistaken, you're off duty for tonight, and I'm off duty permanently," Vorkosigan said. "You're not my subordinate, Simon. You weren't even my subordinate on that mission. The blame is not yours to bear."

He slumped in his seat. "I have to go back to work on Monday," he said, dully. "I don't know how." How to look into Negri's eyes and take his orders, knowing what those orders had led to, and could lead to. How to go back to how he was before, knowing what he did. How to get his old life back – if he even wanted it.

Vorkosigan took a long drink from his glass and gave him a level look, the kind that could arrest Simon's attention from across a room filled with thousands, nevermind across a table in a private room. "The perfect soldier never questions orders," he said, every syllable as sonorous as a gong. "But it is the best who know what they fight for. What do you fight for, Simon?"

"Barrayar," he said, automatically, then sighed. "But what that is, who knows?" He gazed wearily back at Vorkosigan. "You knew, when you signed up for that mission. And yet you chose to do it, anyway."

 _Why,_ was the unspoken question that hung between them, weighted by the deaths of thousands of brother officers. Officers who had simply obeyed their orders, done their duty, and been led to the slaughter.

 _If Barrayar called you to sacrifice yourself in such a fashion, for the betterment of the Imperium, would you?_ He wrestled with the question; it slipped out of his grasp, leaving him bereft of answers and as lost as he'd been before.

"I knew," Vorkosigan said, and refilled their glasses. "I saw the arguments. I saw the conviction." No need to say whose; Simon remembered too clearly the steely resolve in Ezar's eyes when he spoke of Escobar. He wondered now how much of that steel covered grief and regrets, if there were indeed any. "It's not something that can be explained by logic, or words," Vorkosigan said, and sighed deeply. "You'll rise to command one day, Simon. Or you will, if you stay. How do you choose whether to send a squad of men out after one, when to pull out and leave your men behind? How do you choose when to exchange one hostage for many, or when to break yourself on unbending, uncompromising principle?" He clenched a hand, and let it fall open again. "So it is. We live to serve, but what do we serve?"

Simon stared at the liquid in his glass. It shimmered, and the amber recalled the stones in the walls of the Residence. He narrowed his eyes. "The position that you were offered..."

Aral slanted a glance at him, and drained his glass.

It was so clear now, he wondered how he had missed it before. "It was the Regency, wasn't it? I can see why you didn't want it."

Aral refilled his glass, mechanically. "A lifetime of making those decisions. To step into _his_ shoes, and look Gregor in the eye..." he laughed; it was a hollow, bitter sound.

Gregor. His chip threw up the image of Vorruyter again, throat slashed open, staring at him with Gregor's reproachful eyes. He shook his head violently. "I can't do this," he said, and only realised that he'd spoken the words aloud after his chip registered the words as audio memory.

Vorkosigan's mouth twisted in an expression that was half sympathetic smile, half grimace. "You still have a promising career ahead of you, you know. Negri's got you lined up for high command. Maybe even his successor."

His eyes widened. "He told you that?"

Vorkosigan shrugged easily. "It's obvious. Negri mentors you. How many others does he do that for?"

"Ezar mentored you too," he mumbled, to hell with bugs and not naming names. _And then sent you out to die. Not so obviously, of course, but he might as well have killed you at the same time he killed Serg..._

"Ah," Vorkosigan said, sardonic. "That was different."

"No," Simon said, and knocked his glass back. He couldn't taste anything any more. "Ezar – calls me his vid-recorder. Negri doesn't, but it's what he uses me for. To them, I'm a tool - an interesting, potentially useful tool. Equipped with playback button. Hardly command material." Where had this bitterness come from? He hadn't known he had it in him. "Command material is people like you. People who burn brighter than the sun. People who need no artificial aids to make them … something more than anyone else." His mind caught up belatedly with him, with cries of _open mouth insert foot, Simon_ , and he snapped his mouth shut. Too late.

"I shine no lights now," Vorkosigan said. "And if I ever did – you of all people know that they were an illusion. But perhaps you give yourself too little credit."

 _Don't flatter yourself,_ Negri had said.

"Simon," Vorkosigan said, insistent, and his voice dragged Simon's gaze up from the table to meet his eyes. "When it all went to hell, I didn't rely on you because you're just a vid-recorder with – a playback button, you say? What do you mean?"

 _Shit._ He was tempted to lie, but there was something about Vorkosigan that could draw the pure, honest truth from him with just a word. "When I said I _couldn't_ edit my report to you," he said, "I meant ... precisely that."

The light of understanding started dawning in Vorkosigan's eyes, followed swiftly by anger. His brows came down, his hands sought his glass and tightened around it, as though trying to choke the life out of it.

"If you would like to resign your commission," Vorkosigan said, very carefully, as though if he spoke any louder his grip on his temper would shatter, "I would be honoured to have you as one of my armsmen."

"The chip--" Simon said.

"If they put it in, I'm certain they can take it out again," Vorkosigan said.

 _God._ He shut his eyes, and tried to imagine himself in brown and silver. Walking up a leaf-strewn path. Learning how to catch horses, maybe. It was too easy. He called to mind his dress greens, and watched their fabric turn dark, gold piping morphing into silver, rank tabs falling away--

\--but the silver eyes remained, staring at him in silence.

"Simon," Vorkosigan said, in some concern. His eyes snapped open, and he realised that he was clutching at his collar. His silver eyes weren't there, of course – they were tucked away in his drawer at home, but he almost fancied that he could feel their weight.

"What good is a sword without a battle?" he said, his voice leaden with hopeless exhaustion, the words starting to slur. "We live to serve."

Vorkosigan sighed. "We live to serve, indeed." He stared contemplatively at his glass. The silence stretched out between them. The world seemed to be darkening around the edges, getting a little fuzzy, and Simon wondered vaguely if he could put his head down on the table and fall asleep, and wake up to find that it was all a bad dream.

"You're going to pass out," Vorkosigan observed. "Let me get you home."

"No," he said, "No, don't. I can find my own way back."

"After you've had a few minutes to rest – yes, I know that excuse well," Vorkosigan said dryly. "Can you even get up?"

He tried, but his legs seemed to have migrated to a different planet. He made a face. "Maybe they have a room here for the night..."

"Let me get you home," Vorkosigan said patiently, and pulled him to his feet. He staggered, the room swinging crazily, but Vorkosigan – _Aral_ , his mind supplied – was a warm, steady presence next to him. A pillar of strength – one, perhaps, that could take the weight of all of Barrayar and bear it up.

"You," Simon said, "Would make a great Regent."

Vorkosigan froze, and Simon swore as he realised that he'd unintentionally spoken aloud again.

"And you're drunk," Vorkosigan said, with false cheer. "Come on."

Drunk, yes. Let Vorkosigan believe it nothing more than alcohol induced rambling. It was easier that way.

The air outside had a bite to it that spoke of winter, though the alcohol buzzing through his system kept it mostly at bay. He managed the trek back to his apartment without embarrassing himself further, the need to navigate keeping what was left of his mind focused. They strode – stumbled – through pools of light and shadow, and Simon thought crazily that perhaps it was some kind of metaphor for their lives. Light and shadow, shadow and light – there was always more shadow than light, but they couldn't stay in either for long. They had to keep moving, and when they did, they slipped between states, belonging to neither.

"You shouldn't be out here without a guard," Simon said, when they were almost at his apartment. "Should have your armsmen, at least."

"Oh, I expect they're around," Vorkosigan replied. "And your ImpSec spooks never quite leave me alone for long. Now can you manage the rest of it yourself, or shall I tuck you into bed?"

"God forbid," Simon muttered, but it still took him two tries to get his keycard through the reader. He glanced at Vorkosigan. "Please tell me you're not going back to the caravanserai to finish your drinking for the night."

Vorkosigan looked thoughtful, then shook his head. "No. Maybe not tonight." He toasted Simon with the bottle. He hadn't even realised that Vorkosigan had brought it along with him.

"Good," Simon said, and opened the door to his apartment. "Well. I'd invite you in, but – I have no furniture. And I'm out of coffee. And--" He checked himself.

"And we'd never live down the scandal," Vorkosigan murmured, but he sounded amused. "No, you're obviously dead on your feet. Go get some sleep."

"...Thank you," Simon said, for more things than he could give voice to.

Vorkosigan was staring contemplatively into the distance. "Faith," he said, and Simon blinked.

"What?"

"Faith," Vorkosigan repeated, and looked back at him, with that clear, steady gaze. "I think that's what she would call it. When logic and words and arguments break down, when you look into the crystal ball and can't see the future, that's all you have left – the belief that the hand that wields the sword does so for good, and not evil."

"Faith," Simon repeated.

Vorkosigan smiled, and it seemed a little less fey, a little more genuine, if sad. "Good night, Simon."


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For all my wonderful readers. Thank you for your all your patience.

The next day dawned bright and sunny and brought with it a head splitting hangover. Simon barely managed to swallow two painkillers and a lot of water, then grabbed at the coffee maker like a drowning man, only to discover that he'd run clean out of coffee. 

Getting to the nearest cafe felt like far more trouble than it was worth, but once he was tucked into a corner, barricaded behind a pair of sunglasses to ward off the worst of the light, a good cup of coffee in him and another in hand to chase it down, he felt almost human again. 

From his perch up on the balcony, he watched the crowds going by, ordinary people about their weekend routine. Shopping bags and happy faces, children racing down the sidewalk, decked out in brightly coloured coats. It felt like a side of Barrayar he'd never seen. No - he'd seen it before. He'd simply … forgotten.

He'd read a book once, about organic memory. Well, he'd read many books, but that one claimed that people never forgot what they saw; it was the recollection that was the problem. With the chip, recollection was never a problem. Everything was there at his fingertips if he needed it. The problem was … forgetting to remember. It had been so very long since he'd even thought about Barrayar in terms of her people. 

He rested his chin in his hand. In the distance, if he craned his neck to the left, he could catch a glimpse of ImpSec HQ, dark and foreboding against the sky. It had no windows, nothing by which one could look out to see the world beyond. It was so very ImpSec, he thought, and no wonder they all lost sight of what it was they were supposed to be protecting. 

A shadow fell over him. Startled, Simon glanced up, instinctively moving for his stunner. His hand brushed the holster by his side and fell away quickly. The man who stood before him was none other than Negri himself, ominous in a black civilian shirt and jeans, a battered leather coat thrown over the ensemble, and a faint scowl on his face.

"Last night, was that deliberate?" the Chief asked without preamble, pulling out the other chair at the table and dropping into it. 

"Last night?" Simon asked carefully. 

The scowl on Negri's face deepened. "Don't piss around, Illyan. Your meeting with Vorkosigan - did you plan it, or was it just coincidence?"

_God._ The concept of privacy was absolutely alien to ImpSec, it seemed. "Coincidence." He pulled off his sunglasses and winced as the light stabbed right through his eyeballs and into his head. "Sir, is something the matter?"

"Vorkosigan was all over my commconsole this morning," Negri growled. "Saying that he knew what my game was and to stop using you that way." 

Simon paled. "I-- that wasn't-- I didn't--"

"What did you say to him?" 

"You didn't have someone tailing me?" Simon asked. 

"Clearly I should have. Now spit it out."

For a moment, something in Simon rebelled against it - he had been off duty, any other person would have claimed no memory of the night's events, and really, what business was it of ImpSec's anyway? The hesitation must have shown, because Negri's expression darkened. Simon tightened his hands around the coffee mug. "We spoke of Escobar," he said. "We discussed what it means to serve Barrayar. I ventured a hypothesis as to what the position that the Emperor had in mind for Vorkosigan was, and Vorkosigan confirmed it. I said--" he swallowed a sigh, strangely reluctant to give voice to things that didn't bear repeating in the light of day. "--that he would have done well in that position."

"You made no mention of your assignment?" Negri pressed. 

Simon looked down into the black depths of his coffee. His fingertips were white against the porcelain. _Your mind is Imperial property now,_ the Emperor had said, after the chip had been installed. How easily he'd accepted it, back then. 

"You wouldn't have," Negri said when he didn't reply. "Even drunk out of your mind. No, this is something that Vorkosigan picked up on his own." The frown melted suddenly away into a thoughtful look. "As I thought. Vorkosigan does better when he has someone to protect."

_Better than when he's used to commit mass murder, yes,_ Simon thought, and bit his tongue. 

Negri was studying him carefully. Simon gave him a level stare in return. It wasn't that long ago that he would have squirmed in discomfort under the assessing gaze of his superior, he realised. But he had been a very different person before Escobar. 

Negri seemed to come to some internal conclusion, for he leaned back. The look that he levelled Simon was sardonic. "Very well. Since Lord Vorkosigan has demanded it, you are hereby relieved of your assignment."

Simon sat up, blinking. "What?"

"As I said," Negri replied shortly. "You are hereby placed on mandatory leave for a week. Report to me thereafter for new orders." 

"No, wait--" Simon spluttered, caught entirely off-guard. The pounding headache made it coherence an elusive thing. "You can't do -- I didn't ask for this -- I can still --"

"Enjoy the time off," Negri said, standing. The scrape of his chair against the floor sounded like thunder. "Try to do something useful with yourself. And try not to get so fucking piss drunk again. It's a liability and you know it."

He was gone before Simon could even marshall a response. In the sudden silence, Simon blinked again, then mechanically took a sip from his coffee cup. The bitter brew twisted on his tongue, writhed through his gut, burning all the way. Anger mingled with no little humiliation - it had been a long time since he'd failed an assignment this badly. His fingers wrapped around the unadorned collar of his civilian shirt, and tugged at the fabric where silver eyes would normally rest. 

He should have known that he was hopelessly outclassed, from the first. What the hell had Negri been thinking, putting him on an assignment that was bound to fail? Vorkosigan had read him like an open book, right down to the footnotes and the invisible writing between the lines, and he hadn't even _realised_ that Vorkosigan was on to him. He'd known that Vorkosigan's capacity to evaluate people was nothing short of legendary. He'd just … forgotten to remember. 

He swore under his breath, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration. The movement drew his attention to street outside once more, to the people walking past, happy and secure in the peace that the Imperium currently enjoyed. People who looked to the absolute power of the Emperor to protect them. 

Who else, if not Vorkosigan, could take the reins of power and hold them and -- most importantly -- give them _back_ after he was done? Who else could hope to guide Gregor to maturity, could even stand a chance to teach him the vital lessons that he would need to learn, and learn quickly? It was all too clear now -- Barrayar needed Vorkosigan, and needed him sane and happy and whole. Simon wasn't about to delude himself into believing that he was the one who could achieve it. Yet who else was there? He recalled the look in Piotr Vorkosigan's eyes - resigned and frustrated but _accepting_ , recalled the emptiness of Vorkosigan Surleau. It was too easy to retrieve the images of Vorkosigan striding through the halls of the residence upon his return from Escobar, the crowds melting away from him as though he bore some manner of plague. As though the bloodshed at Komarr and Escobar was somehow contagious. 

His chip brought up references that he was pretty sure he hadn't even asked for. Vorkosigan did have friends amongst the Vor. Some friends. One friend, at least. Padma Vorpatril was a name that came to mind, a cousin on Vorkosigan's mother's side. But Vorpatril was off on ship duty, and it would be long months before he returned. Simon sighed. He wasn't sure that they had months. 

No, for all intents and purposes, Vorkosigan was utterly alone, and Simon rather suspected that Vorkosigan was doing his utmost to stay that way. After watching everyone die around him, it was no surprise.

And so Negri sent him. A familiar face. A face that no doubt reminded Vorkosigan of everything he didn't want to remember, but if there was anyone who could talk to him about Escobar...

But he'd blown that chance. Negri had pulled him off the assignment without even letting him have a shot at it. Negri was a damned fool--

\--no, stop. Negri wasn't a fool. Negri was never a fool. 

The pieces clicked rapidly into place. _Since Lord Vorkosigan has demanded it,_ Negri had said. Then _try to do something useful with yourself_.

The corner of Simon's mouth twitched in a very small, humourless smile. 

\--

Even the best laid plans never survived first contact with the enemy, or so the saying went. Simon carefully followed Vorkosigan for most of the week, taking notes on his routine, preparing a careful set up to allow him to run into Vorkosigan again without making it seem deliberate. He had a script. He had a plan. He had everything mapped out in his head, down to the finest detail.

The night he was due to spring it, Vorkosigan was nowhere to be seen at his usual haunts. Annoyed and frustrated, Simon found himself alone at a corner table at another watering hole, nursing a bottle and a barrelful of doubts as to whether he was even doing the right thing. 

He never took off his wristcomm, even when he was supposedly on leave, but he certainly wasn't expecting any sort of call, especially when it was well past midnight. The buzz from it made him jump, and it took a moment before he even realised what the noise was, and another moment to wonder just who the heck could be calling him at this hour, before his brain caught up with him. 

"Illyan," Negri's voice cut through. "Vorkosigan's flyer crashed in the Dendarii Gorge. I want you on the search team. A car will be round to your apartment to pick you up."

The alcohol seemed to evaporate instantly from his system, replaced by the chill of dread. He swallowed, hard. "He was flying down the Gorge at night?" Vorkosigan had taken that route a few times, in the day, but...

"Without lights, or so I'm told," Negri snarled. "That _idiot_. Find him, Simon. And knock some damn sense into him if it's the last thing you do."

He was already out the door and running. Cursing himself for not realising how close the storm had been to breaking. Praying that he was not too late. 

\--

It was hours before they found the wreckage. By luck or providence or some mad combination of the two, Simon was in the first group to stumble across the cockpit, at the end of a long trail of debris strewn across the canyon floor. 

Simon hurried over the moment they lifted Vorkosigan from the wreckage of the cockpit. It was obvious that the man had been drinking - if the smell from the cockpit wasn't a dead giveaway, there was also the fact that Vorkosigan was snoring gently as they cut him free. Up to his eyeballs in maple mead, was Simon's guess, and he could have grabbed Vorkosigan and punched him - asleep or not - if the relief at finding him alive and breathing hadn't been so overwhelming that it felt like his legs might give out. 

"How is he?" Simon demanded of the medic, who was running a handheld scanner over the Vor lord. 

"Nothing more than scrapes and bruises. And a blood alcohol level that's very nearly off the charts," the medic said, a tad incredulous, and shook his head. "The fortune of the exceedingly intoxicated..."

Simon let out a breath that he hadn't realised he had been holding. "Nothing life threatening, then?" His hands were shaking. His entire body was shaking. So close. They'd come _so close_ to losing him forever. Simon couldn't even begin to imagine it. 

"Apparently not," the medic said, and moved to attempt to open one of Vorkosigan's eyes to check for concussion. The moment he touched Vorkosigan's face, however, the man lunged up, hand grabbing for the medic's neck, an incoherent snarl on his lips. Simon lunged forward on instinct, shoving the medic out of the way and snagging Vorkosigan's wrist. Vorkosigan reacted immediately, socking him solidly in the solar plexus. Simon stumbled backwards as Vorkosigan lunged forward to slam his elbow into his ribcage and shove him down onto the ground with a stranglehold on his neck. Stars exploded in his vision as he slammed into the dirt, a stab of panic lancing through his gut as he realised that he couldn't breathe. _Don't move,_ his instincts said, _don't be a threat_. He froze, fighting the urge to claw at the hands around his throat, as his lungs started to scream and his vision seemed like it was collapsing down a wormhole tunnel.

A moment later, lucidity washed into Vorkosigan's eyes. "Simon?" he said. 

'Vorkosigan' was too much of a mouthful, especially when he couldn't draw any air, so he just settled for nodding. A second later, Vorkosigan realised that he still had his hands around Simon's neck, and recoiled so quickly that it made Simon's head spin. "Damn! I'm sorry -- are you alright?" 

"That's what I should be asking you," Simon shot back, then gulped a breath which promptly turned into a hiss as pain exploded in his chest. The medic glanced sharply at him. Simon tried to shake his head, then settled for wrapping an arm around his side and tried his damnest to take the shallowest breaths he could.

"Simon--" Vorkosigan started to say again, then stalked over to the medic and yanked the scanner out of his hand and trained it on Simon. "Severe bruising-- no, fracture," he said, and swore violently. "Corporal, get him to--"

"No," Simon said sharply. He wasn't going to let himself be bundled off to ImpMil - he had to be _here_. "No, I'm fine. Nothing you can do about a cracked rib anyway. Our priority is you." He pushed himself carefully upright. Vorkosigan was at his side in an instant, helping him to his feet. Given that Vorkosigan wasn't entirely steady himself, it wasn't very much help. 

"Me?" Vorkosigan said, incredulous, then his eyes narrowed as he glanced around. His gaze lingered briefly on the destroyed wreckage of the lightflyer. "Where is this? Just what happened?" This close, Simon could smell the alcohol on his breath. 

"That's what I was hoping you could tell me," Simon said, signalling to his officers to get the air car around. 

"Oh," Vorkosigan said, his gaze going distant. "That's right." He glanced at the wreckage once more. "I guess that didn't go well." He looked at Simon. "But that doesn't explain why you're here."

His ribs were on fire, and his head was spinning from getting smacked into the ground. Vorkosigan was alive, and he was glad for that, if really, sodding _furious_ at the man, and it was way too close to the wrong side of morning. But mostly, he was tired, fed up of Barrayar's stupid games, fed up of Vorkosigan's antics, and missing the quiet of his empty little apartment in Vorbarr Sultana rather badly. "Where else would I be?" he sighed. _Where else but at your side, through fire and darkness, through the stars and down into the dirt?_

Something flickered across Vorkosigan's face, and the haze in his eyes sharpened to something more familiar. "Right," he said, suddenly all business. "You're coming with me. Get in the car."

Simon stared. "What?"

"You heard me," Vorkosigan said, then grabbed him by the arm and all but stuffed him into the air car. "If you're not going to get those ribs checked out on your own, then I'll just have to make sure that it happens." 

"Vorkosigan--" Simon started to say, then abruptly snapped his mouth shut as his chip recalled what Negri had mentioned. _Vorkosigan does better when he has someone to protect._ And this was what he'd been trying to do, hadn't he? Corner Vorkosigan somewhere and try to talk some sense into him. In an unofficial capacity. Except that he'd never wanted it to happen this way.

"Get someone to clear up the debris, will you," Vorkosigan was saying to someone that Simon couldn't see. "See if you can salvage anything. Perhaps the repair shop will be able to put it back together again." He dropped into the seat beside Simon with a sigh. "I _liked_ that flyer."

"Perhaps you ought to have thought about that before you went on a joyride," Simon muttered. 

Vorkosigan smirked and glanced over at him as the air car took off. "I think I like this side of you. Better than when you're playing the perfect mindless Imperial soldier, anyway."

Simon glanced over at him. "While we're on the subject of mindlessness, perhaps you could tell me just what inspired you to go flying in the Gorge at night, without lights?"

Vorkosigan barked a laugh that had very little of humour in it. "It seemed like a good idea at the time." He sighed, and Simon reached forward to hit the button that brought up the privacy screen between them and the driver. The movement jarred his ribs, and he wasn't fast enough to hold back the soft curse that escaped from his lips. Vorkosigan looked at him, immediately concerned. "How bad is it?"

"It's fine," Simon said shortly. "Shouldn't have leaned forward." He paused, then decided that the direct approach was the best. "Forgive me for being blunt, sir, but were you actually trying to kill yourself?"

Vorkosigan went silent for so long that Simon feared he had asked the wrong question. The other man was staring out of the windows of the air car, his chin resting on his hand, his expression gloomy. Finally, he heaved a sigh. "Yes. No. No. ...Yes. Does it matter? I'm not even sure what I was thinking any more. It's just..." he leaned back and looked up at the ceiling. "It's simpler, out there. When you're in the cockpit. It's just you and your instincts, and it's just a matter of life or death. Your own death, that is. No politics, no thousands of lives hanging in the balance, a simple, clear-cut outcome where you can actually win, where the victory isn't hollow."

"Or where you can lose," Simon said quietly. "And in doing so, lose everything."

"Just my own life," Vorkosigan said. 

"Is that what you think?" Simon asked. "Is that truly what you think?"

Vorkosigan spun to stare at him, and even in the darkness, Simon could see the storms brewing in his eyes." _Damnit_ , Illyan. Barrayar doesn't need me any more!"

He refused to yield in the face of Vorkosigan's anger, despite every instinct clamouring at him to back down. "Is that truly what you think?" he repeated. 

Vorkosigan clenched his hands into fists. "I know what you're thinking," he said, "and you're dead wrong." 

"If not you, then who?" Simon said. 

Vorkosigan laughed, humourless and biting and bitter. "Someone else." 

Simon made a short, aborted gesture in frustration. "You're avoiding the question."

"There are dozens of people out there who would make better regents than me," Vorkosigan said. "Vortala. Or Vormonchief. Vorlakial even. Plenty of them itching to get their hands on the job..."

"And," Simon said carefully, well aware that he was treading on dangerous ground. "What manner of man makes for a good regent?"

"Someone who doesn't want the job," Vorkosigan said without thinking, then snapped his mouth shut immediately. 

Simon said nothing, but the silence that fell between them was pointed. 

"You're thinking too loudly over there," Vorkosigan said, eventually. "It isn't going to work. It never will."

"With all due respect," Simon said, "I think you're wrong."

Vorkosigan sighed. "Then we'll just have to agree to disagree."

Simon opened his mouth to say something, anything, but Vorkosigan glanced over, and the look that he levelled at him was quelling. "Enough," Vorkosigan said, and the finality in that single word was obvious. 

The air car banked over the city, the lights whirling past in the darkness. Beside him, Vorkosigan lapsed into silence. Simon spared a surreptitious glance over, but Vorkosigan was staring out of the window, and refused to look at him. 

 

They landed, not at ImpMil, but at Vorkosigan House. Vorkosigan, it seemed, had called ahead for a doctor, and Simon found himself swept up into a medical examination despite his protestations. The doctor - _as predicted_ , Simon thought with a touch of irritation - pronounced a diagnosis of bruises and one fractured rib, prescribed painkillers and no strenuous physical activity for a month, then swept out to check on Vorkosigan. 

Left alone in one of the sitting rooms, Simon stared into the mirror as he buttoned up his shirt. Angry red bruises had formed around his throat, and he found himself studying them absently, wondering at the study in contrasts that was Aral Vorkosigan. No one doubted the Butcher of Komarr's capacity for violence, and Simon had seen it again firsthand tonight, but few people nowadays spoke about the other side of him, the side that cared enough to arrange for his personal physician to look at a junior officer, that grieved endlessly over lost lives, the side that loved the Imperium enough to let it break his heart and soul in its service. 

What drove a man - a brilliant strategist, no less - to commit such an _illogical_ move? 

He traced a finger around the edge of what promised to be a spectacular bruise when the morning arrived. He hadn't anticipated that. He hadn't anticipated anything that had happened this night, and that thought made him realise just how little he understood Vorkosigan. He been a fool to assume that one shared experience made him an expert on the man. 

_I don't know him,_ Simon thought. _I don't know him at all._

And if he couldn't even understand - on anything more than the most superficial level - just what had been going through Vorkosigan's mind when he climbed into his lightflyer's cockpit, how in the three worlds of the Imperium did he even hope to stand a chance of talking sense into him?

The sound of footsteps made him turn. Vorkosigan stood in the doorway, his face in shadow. Simon tilted his head. 

"The doctor tells me you have a cracked rib," Vorkosigan said. "I'm sorry."

"It's nothing," Simon said. "Really, sir. Just … forget it." 

Vorkosigan smirked. "Coming from you, that's almost funny." He sighed and moved further into the room. "Thank you. For coming after me."

"I might be too late the next time," Simon said quietly. "In fact, I was too late this time."

Vorkosigan shook his head. "It won't happen again." He chuckled darkly. "If nothing else, the flyer is probably unsalvageable." He leaned against the wall. 

"And you?" Simon prompted. "What did the doctor say about you?"

"A few screws loose in the head, a stiff neck, luck of the devil, and the sense of a gnat." Vorkosigan snorted. "It appears you came out worse. That's why I didn't want you on my case."

Simon shook his head. "I'm not sure I follow."

"That's what I told Negri. You're worth far more than this, Simon. You don't deserve to be chasing after a man like me. This is what happens to those who stand too close to me." He gestured vaguely at him. "They get hurt. Or worse."

"So that's why you asked Negri to reassign me," Simon said softly. 

"I thought he'd put you up to it. I thought you were simply following orders. I should have realised …" Vorkosigan sighed. 

_Where else would I be?_ The words he had uttered in exasperation came back to haunt him now, and he wished fervently that he could unsay them.

"Whatever the case, this ends here," Vorkosigan said, and his voice rang with the note of command. "I'm not your charge, not any more. It's time you moved on - there is so much more that you could be doing. So much more that you're capable of. The last thing you should be doing is trailing me around."

"I can't," Simon said, the words coming out harsher than he intended. He moderated his tone. "How could I?" He took a step forward. "Listen to yourself. _You_ are worth far more than this. You hurt those around you, you say? So does a lightflyer, in the wrong hands. It doesn't stop it from being a good thing, when used right."

Vorkosigan waved vaguely again. The gesture was tired, defeated. "Perhaps. But a lightflyer that's strewn in ruins across several miles of terrain is still useless."

"It can be fixed," Simon said.

"For what end? So it can be wrecked once again?" Vorkosigan snapped, and Simon nearly flinched at the snarl in his voice. Vorkosigan muttered an oath under his breath and scrubbed a hand over his forehead. 

"... About what you said earlier. About the Regency," Vorkosigan said. "About what type of man makes for a good Regent." He wedged his hands in his pockets. "What Barrayar needs is a new start. Someone whose hands aren't drenched in blood."

"What Barrayar needs," Simon replied, keeping his voice soft, "Is someone who knows the value of peace. How very fragile it is. And how the high price we have paid for it."

Vorkosigan's mouth twitched, and the smile that he gave him was sad. "Barrayar needs... someone who's not broken. I'm … tired. And perhaps it is selfish of me, but it's also the truth." He pulled his hands from his pockets, and spread them open, palms upwards, a gesture of helplessness. "I gave everything to Escobar. And now there's nothing left."

It was impossible to find the words to rebut that. Simon struggled against platitudes and false reassurances, against the naive argument that time cured everything. But all arguments and excuses crumbled into dust in the face of the hollow look that Vorkosigan wore on his face, and Simon felt something twinge in his chest that had nothing to do with his injuries. _I was too late this time,_ he had said. This time, and the time after Escobar, and every other time it had counted, it seemed. Maybe it really was too late to do anything but sweep up the wreckage.

"I understand," he said. "My apologies. I was … out of line."

Vorkosigan shook his head. "No. Not you. You're the last person who needs to apologise." He shoved away from the wall, stepped forward, and clapped a hand on Simon's shoulder. "And never apologise for saying what needs to be said. Barrayar needs that, more than anything." Something sharpened in his gaze. "You are far more than a vid-recorder, Simon. As you say - Barrayar needs people who know the value of peace and the price at which it's bought. _People_ , Simon. Not one person. Not just the Regent. Ezar would like us to think otherwise, but the Imperium is built on far more than just the Emperor. One good man at the top can scarcely make a difference when he stands upon the shoulders of those who are rotten at the core." His voice dropped, but the intensity in it only grew. "And conversely, if the ones around him will bear him up, then he doesn't have to be the best, the brightest, the most brilliant."

_Or the least broken,_ Simon thought, but the words stuck in his throat.

"My time is over," Vorkosigan said. "A sword's still a sword. You use it for war, you put it away in peacetime. But I like to think - maybe because if I didn't believe it, I wouldn't even try to keep that flyer in the air - I like to think that maybe, just maybe, something good will come out of Escobar. That there's hope for a new future for Barrayar, one that means that we will never have to repeat Escobar ever again." His gaze locked with Simon's. "You are that hope, Simon. You and all the other young officers who survived that day. You are the ones who can make sure that Escobar was not in vain."

Simon had to force himself not to take a step back. All of Aral Vorkosigan's brilliant charisma, focused, channeled, bent on him. A little muted, yes, not quite the shining, consuming fire that it had been before, but still -- still a star that shone so brightly that he felt like he couldn't stare directly into the heart of it. _What a waste,_ something inside him cried. _What loss to Barrayar, that we should have used this man as an architect of destruction, rather than the one to forge a new world..._

In killing Serg, Simon realised, Ezar had also murdered Vorkosigan. Only time would tell if the price that they had paid was worth it. 

"Yes," Vorkosigan said, mistaking his silence for uncertainty. "That is the way of things. The old will eventually pass away. And one day, when you're in the position to change things, because you _will_ stand there, and that day is likely a lot sooner than later, _remember_."

The smile that Simon gave him was sad. "I can't forget, sir." He wasn't referring to the chip.

"I know," Vorkosigan replied, and the look he gave him was intent. "Promise me, Simon. Step away from this. There's nothing for you here. Go find a new sky for yourself."

"On one condition," Simon replied. 

Vorkosigan tilted his head. "And what is that?"

"That you step away from this also," Simon answered. "You're right - Barrayar doesn't have the right to demand anything more from you; you've discharged your duty, a thousand times over. But I do believe that there's plenty out there for you too."

Vorkosigan had retreated behind that sardonic mask again, but this time, Simon recognised it for what it was - a mask. "Such as?"

"I don't know. But that's why it's new, isn't it? You've won our peace, our very future. Shouldn't you at least go and see what shape and form it's taking?"

Some emotion flashed through Vorkosigan's eyes, and the defensive look shifted to something more neutral. 

"Besides," Simon said carefully, oh so very carefully, "She would want you to be happy."

Vorkosigan's lips compressed into a thin line, and for a moment Simon thought he had miscalculated, and that Vorkosigan's anger was going to boil over. The storms raging in his eyes certainly hinted at it, a tempest of emotion, barely contained. Vorkosigan clenched his hands, and Simon wondered if Vorkosigan was imagining those hands around his throat. 

Then, as rapidly as the storm had come, it passed. Vorkosigan sighed; the anger drained out of his face and the tense line of his shoulders relaxed. "She'll never set foot on Barrayar, if she can help it."

"Never's a long time," Simon replied. It was emotional blackmail at its finest, and he _hated_ himself for resorting to it, but he could tell that it was getting through to Vorkosigan. A reminder, if nothing else, that there was still a wide, wide world out there, one far larger than Barrayar. 

Vorkosigan shook his head. "You don't understand, Simon. She hates everything that this planet stands for. And how could I ever fault her for feeling that way?"

Simon bit his lip. The bleak despair was back in full force, and this time, he felt directly responsible for it. "Not everything," he insisted. "And as you say, sir, there's hope for the future yet. And if I may be so bold as to suggest -- I believe that's what she saw when she looked at you."

It might have been his imagination, but the despair that clouded Vorkosigan's eyes seemed to lift, just a little. It struck him then, that this was perhaps the leverage he'd been looking for, the weakness that he could use to guilt Vorkosigan into accepting the Regency. _Take the Regency. Build a Barrayar that she could love. Build a Barrayar that she would be willing to step foot on._

The knowledge made him sick to the stomach. He tried out the words in his head again, tried to coax them to his tongue, and realised that he simply, absolutely, could not do this. Not to Vorkosigan. Not to the man that Barrayar owed so very much to.

Negri had warned him before about the consequences of private judgments -- _just like getting a little bit pregnant_ \-- but then, even Negri himself had been known to make private judgments, hadn't he? And right now his private judgment was saying to him: _enough_. 

Vorkosigan was watching him curiously, his expression momentarily unguarded. "You look troubled," he said. "What is it?"

_Just writhing between the pincers of duty and conscience, that's all,_ Simon thought, but swallowed the words and shook his head instead. "Nothing," he said. "I shouldn't impose on your time. It's late. We both need our rest."

"I daresay we do," Vorkosigan said distantly. 

 

Autumn turned gradually to winter. Vorkosigan stopped drinking himself into a stupor, and Simon just shrugged when Negri called it his good influence. Count Vortala was sworn in as the Regent, and during one of the darkest, deepest nights of winter, Ezar himself finally slipped away.

When the funeral was done with, Simon turned up quietly at Vorkosigan House with a bottle in hand. Together, they drank to the memory of the past, and to whatever hope the uncertain future held.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's not over! (In fact, it's barely begun.)


End file.
